Global Sketchbook Project Day @ Eve N Odd Gallery

Eve N Odd Sign

Arthouse Co-op [Link] is a community of artists that works on projects and exhibits together. Anyone can join. Some of their projects have involved sketchbooks. A few weeks ago Global Sketchbook Day was celebrated world-wide by artists' organizations, galleries, etc.

In St. Petersburg, this was held at Jennifer Kosharek's Eve N Odd gallery. It's a small gem of a space in the Crislip Arcade where first-rate, top quality events are held on a regular basis.

Artists' Sketchbooks

The artist's sketch/note book is part diary/journal. Womb and crucible for the evolution and forging of ideas, it is the skunkworks of the creative soul. One rarely gets the opportunity to look into them. Most people have seen more of Leonardo's sketchbooks than probably any living artist. There are many works on the pages of these books, but they are also works of art as a whole. Each is like a portable retrospective micro-show. I remember seeing some of Van Gogh's sketchbooks on display at a show about him and Gauguin at the Art Institute in Chicago. Exquisite, passionate drawings and small scrawly writing. It was a private and privileged view.

From Wade Slater's sketchbook

 The books at Eve N Odd were nothing short of fantastic glimpses into the artist's life and the process. These days we are inundated with large (and larger) works, whose size pushes us back, but these books are intimate, accessible, inviting and seductive. Some images in them are sketches, but others go well beyond that, as finished small works that can stand on their own, but will never be framed and exhibited. Continuity is something one seldom experiences in the art world. In sketchbooks, that is the context of each page, those before and after it.


Jennifer treated me to a comprehensive tour of her sketchbooks, including one that no one else had ever seen. I was blown away by the quality, the deep humanism, and figurative transparency of the work. Here are a few pictures from that magical session...

  



 







Congratulations to all the artists and Jennifer Kosharek for an amazing sketchbook afternoon. I could have spent days. if not weeks. poring over them.

--- Luis

The Last Show @ Salt Creek

 As received from Salt Creek. This is the last show at the original location, and will run through the 30th and 31st. Twenty years...

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Please come share and celebrate
as Salt Creek Artworks closes its doors forever.

This will be the last reception in Salt Creek Artworks' twenty-year history. It has been a remarkable journey.

The reception will be Friday June 29th from 6pm to 9pm. The gallery will be open on Saturday and Sunday as well.

We also wish to honor SCA owners Pat Burgess and her father, Claude Azell Prince who had the vision and passion to offer work spaces for artist of all disciplines and allow them the flexibility to create and work in their own unique ways with minimum rules and maximum independence. Pat and Azell were great art community champions as well, lending Salt Creek Artworks' unique space to other organizations for events and causes.

 We are grateful and proud of what we have accomplished here, in this old building. So much beauty was created within these walls for so many years.

Please come enjoy Salt Creek Artworks one last time.

Thanks for your support; wherever we end up... we'll keep you posted.

Lance Rodgers.

Curator/Artist, Salt Creek Artworks

and all of the Salt Creek Artworks Artists 

Opening Reception:  

Friday, June 29th from 6 to 9 pm

Free admission 

727.894.2653

 

Elegant Refreshments Provided by

Pipo's 

The Original Cuban Cafe

437 Central Avenue  St. Petersburg  33701

727.823.7476

First Saturday Indie Market #5

The days are getting hotter, and the Indie Market is settling into its own groove. We're seeing regulars on both sides of the sidewalk, it's doing good, but could use new faces and more artists.

These two smiling beauties were manning the Zen Glass table. Note all the hypnotically beautiful glass items. If you want something bigger, make the trip to the Warehouse Arts District and the Zen Glass Factory showroom at [Link]

Laura Spencer's work shines in any company. I've run across it at the "Sitting Pretty" show at The Pier, the Leave a Message show @ the Morean, and where this painting was headed at: The Crochet Coral Reef installation @ Florida Craftsmen Gallery -- and that was all in one week.

Above is Michael J. Matthews standing next to one of his works, the first after an idle period. For me, it was visual portal, a narrative about the passage of time, cyclical time. He can be reached at artisticglassdesign@yahoo.com. A personal note of congratulations to Michael for his re-entry.

Looking like a bunch of azulejos, Greg Francis' lyrical iPhone photographs of local scenes and signs, some posing as symbols as well, are beautiful and affordable. See more here: [Link]

The elephants are marching at James Oleson Gallery. They will go to selected artists to be painted and displayed during the RNC convention about 2.5 months from now.

This band played to a small crowd in front of Rosie's Upcycle Boutique.

I ran into local legend, poet and Indie Market bookseller John Rosa (on the right) listening to the above band.

Congratulations to all the artists, vendors and performers for being assets to the community and for putting together a good market, and to Rosie Williams for organizing the event and keeping it going.

--- Luis

Art On's Art by the Water @ History Museum Grounds

By chance I happened to find out this show was going on (whatever happened to press releases?). The setting, where the Pier's Causeway joins the mainland on the N side, by the History Museum is perfect. A few highlights...on the left is Marci Eberhardt, who has been reviewed here before, with one of her paintings. The fish in her work have an intensity and dynamism that is very realistic






Patricia Preston Warren is a photographic artist working with a wide variety of themes and subjects in color and black-and-white Here she is show with a gorgeous architectural B&W print.

On the right is Christine A. Galas with one of her paisley-like design paintings.

Daryl Bills, an illustrator and graphic designer, posing in front of his wife's paintings.

Above is an installation titled "Raw Umbrage", by Mark S. Signorelli, a performance and installation artist who has worked and shown in several cities. The piece above was just accepted by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition for their national juried show "Color", which runs from 7/28-8/19.

Congratulations to all the artists and to Art On for a pleasurable show.

--- Luis

Burning on Central: Part I, Prelude to a Review.

Graffiti Angel and writing, Pompeii, 2,000 years old.

Graffiti has been with us for a long, long time. It is found everywhere humans gather. The laborers who built the pyramids carved and painted secret graffiti in places where they knew their overseers would never look. That was four thousand, five hundred years ago.

When the Arab Spring began, graffiti bloomed on the walls of places like Egypt. The artists faced long prison terms, and death, but that did not deter them. In Syria there was an angel named "Spray Man" AKA Nour Hatem Zahra (pictured on right) one of many artists/crews who painted anti-government graffiti protesting the Assad regime. He was imprisoned when his name was given up by a friend under torture (he forgave him). When he was freed, he went right back to work. He was shot and died, slowly bleeding to death, lying on a stairway. Hundreds came to his funeral, which was surrounded by Assad's armed thugs. The mourners addressed his mother, saying "We are all your sons".
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 In Greece, as their economic world is crushed and the 1% bails out, allegorical and metaphorical graffiti is reportedly appearing everywhere [Link].



In Russia, there is the performance artists' group Voina, who among many other acts of political protest, painted a monumental outline of a penis on a drawbridge in Moscow.





Graffiti, even the decorative, conventionally beautiful design type, is anti-authoritarian. It defies the illusion of omnipotence of the ambient power structure. A lot of it is revolutionary, making it and those who paint it an Enemy of the state. Graffiti is a cornerstone of the "Broken Window" theory. Its practitioners are stereotyped as gang members.

 Graffiti also defies the conventions of the art world in many ways, by escaping the approved art-spaces (the museum, gallery, sidewalk art show, etc) and treating the world as a canvas and exhibition space. Commercial concerns do this on a regular basis, and the power of taking it to the streets is not lost on these artists.

 All this is not to pigeonhole the tradition in any way. It is alive, rapidly evolving  and has more variants than one can imagine. There are pieces, large and small, in very hard to access places, where almost no one will see them. Viewers have to know where to look or be directed there, and often traverse initiatory hurdles for a moment of revelation. Some are in heavenly (high) places, others literally underground, or niches formed by inset doorways. This is direct, uncoated, uncurated, unschooled, untamed, hot and wet-wired high-risk art at its most primal.

The Morean Arts Center (MAC) is featuring graffiti artists (some active, some not) in its current show, "Leave a Message: Urban Art in Florida".

We've been waiting for a major venue to dare do this, as many have long ago in other cities, and now it's here.

[End Part I]

Hot Art. Cool Crowd @ Mc Donald Training Center (MTC).

Main room, MTC Gallery

The Mc Donald Training Center is an organization founded in 1953 in the service of people with developmental disabilities whose primary goal is to enable them to lead the lives they choose. Part of this involves art. Recently MTC held their Hot Art. Cool Crowd. art show at their Fine Arts Gallery, located at 5420 Cypress Ave. in Tampa.

The gallery consists of an anteroom, one main, large longitudinal room, a hallway, and three smaller rooms.The work is largely Outsider art, with some exceptions. Some of the artists are in galleries outside MTC, and a few have done illustrations for publications.

Edwin Ramos, "The Ranch"

"The Ranch", by Edwin Ramos is a classic-looking landscape in the Impressionist style. The artist's bold strokes and colors are confident. The composition weighs the form of the tower on the left and its verticality with the flaxen golds of the fields and the figure in the lower center.

There are several portraits in a graphic style in this show. On the left is Omoro Rall's "Modigliani Lady". The reference to Modigliani is visual. The palette, expression and elongation of the face show a familiarity with his work.

Betty Young, "Trees"

Betty Young painted this in tempera, a medium that allows for great subtlety of color and it put to good use here. It is a forest view, with the trunks of the foreground trees forming secondary frames as well as graphic, colorful forms. The bent to the viewer's right of two of the trunks is intriguing, adding a formal tension to the composition.

There are several cats represented in the paintings in the show. This one, titled "My Cat", by Aaron Black, is a near-abstraction, composed of geometric planes and fields, yet clearly a cat, and a dapper one at that, complete with red bowtie and a knowing, self-assured smile. Note how he is ruled by the moon, seen at the 12 o'clock position, and the sun lies at the 4 o'clock, to the lower right of the cat.

"Strolling Down Memory Lane", by Lora Duguay, is a realistic, small oil painting of a figure walking on a trail through a forest. Note how the branches of the trees on the left seem to lovingly protect the figure, which in some ways looks young, yet needs a cane and whose curved back suggests a limp.

This "Audrey Hepburn", by Glen Nash is very different from the the famous photograph. The artist has chosen to show us an openly insecure and inquiring, perhaps older version. The fluency in body language is impressive here.








There are many other wonderful works in this show. I want to congratulate all the artists and the Mc Donald Training Center for a memorable show.

--- Luis

Street Art: Private Views @ Venture Compound

These works are not visible from the street. They're in a courtyard of sorts, fenced in and private.

Work by "Stoic"

Showing Tibetan influence, two skull faces by "Stoic".

The one on the right is by Christian Thomas, who is currently in the Urban Art/Graffiti Show at the Morean Arts Center.

This Rock of Ages Weekend, June 15th-17th

Raise your Glass to the Arts Benefit @ Duncan McClellan Glass - Benefit for the DMG School Project.  Duncan talked with me about this project, and how he and his crew have maximized efficiency to get the most for each student out of each dollar. Food, DJ/dancing, and a live steel band. Each person is to bring a bottle of wine with an arts-inspired label or name to share. At the end of the evening, unopened bottles will be auctioned off. $15 advance, $20 at the door. DMG, 2342 Emerson Ave., St. Pete. 7:30 - 10 PM Friday, June 15th. 813.416.3244.
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One Waterway, One Tampa Bay @ HCC Ybor - Carolyn Kossar and HCC Ybor are showing the work of Community Stepping Stones (CSS) students and volunteers in the form of a mural by Kathleen Mc Cabe. Fifteen hundred plastic bottles collected from beach clean-ups will surround the mural. Opens Friday, June 15th. 5-8 PM Runs through June 28th, when there will be a closing reception. All at HCC Ybor, Palm Ave & 15th St. Free admission.
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The Alphabet Art Show & The Two Melis(s)as @ The Bricks - Tampa's premier hipster hangout is hosting two art shows: One is the alphabet as interpreted by 26 artists. The other involves the collaborative work of Melisa Taylor and Melissa Wilson (who have been featured here before). The Bricks, 1327 E. Seventh Ave. Ybor City Opens 8 PM Saturday.
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Big Gay Pride Art Show Opening Reception @ Metro Wellness  - A month-long LGBT art exhibit, opening Friday, June 15th, 6-8 PM, Food, music and more. Metro Wellness @ 3251 E. 3rd Ave. St. Pete.
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Members Only Show @ 620 - I received this as an anonymous comment..."studio 620 has an opening this saturday". They had not sent me any press releases, nor was it listed in any of the three newspapers. I checked their site and yes, the 620 Members Only Show premieres during the Studio@620 Birthday Celebration on Saturday June 16, 2012.
620 1t Ave S. St Pete.
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Ongoing....

Leave a Message: Urban Art in Florida @ The Morean Arts Center - The Morean steps up and seizes the cultural moment with a daring exhibit that is long overdue. Tes One, BASK, Akut, Center, Dolla, Allen Leper Hamilton, Joey Clay, Laura Spencer, Anna Paul, Stephen Palladino, Christian Thomas, Nonstop, Wes Roos, Jansen Smith, and Terribly Odd will be exhibited. Some for the first time in a gallery. A must-see this weekend. The Morean Arts Center, 719 Central Ave. St Petersburg. Free Admission.
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Crochet Coral Reef @ Florida Craftsmen Gallery - This collaborative project involved several people and thousands of hours, all to raise awareness for marine conservation. This promises to be very different. 501 Central Ave. St Petersburg. See review here. Free Admission.

Gallery: Pangea Project No. 26

Pangea No. 26 Poster

There are good things happening in the Warehouse Arts District (WAD). Some are below the radar so far, like the Pangea Project. These concerts, put on by impressario and musician Jesse Vance are consistent, high-quality experiences that are greater than the sum of their parts. Pangea Project is bringing the best avant-garde art musicians to its stage. Here is a gallery of photographs from No. 26.

Yoko Nogami, "Backyard Waltz"

There is a small art gallery inside the Venture Compound. There was an art show in conjunction with the concert. Here's a few highlights...

On the left is Yoko Nogami's "Backyard Waltz" painting, oil on wood, of a large black cat dancing with what appears to be a young girl (tween?).  The cat has a semi-salacious smile on his face.

On the left is Kelsie Conley's "Rape Revenge", an iconic-looking pen-and-ink on paper. The former victim wreaks revenge with brass knuckles deftly used, a knife and a well-placed kick to the 3rd rapist. in the background, two rats go about their business.

 Mia Culbertson had several pieces in the show. "Still Life With Skull", with its mix of flowers living on borrowed time in their vase, and the skull already past that caught my eye.

Jesse Vance (wearing hat) opened the show.

Photo: MmeX

Infinite Third

Another concertgoer remarked to me that listening to Infinite Third was "like having your soul cleansed". It is.

Outside the building, inspired by the music, some painted graffiti on its walls.
Inside, others were spellbound...











This musician, whose home is in Japan, played an energized set. He is with Windband.

Photo: MmeX.

Dancer

Photo: MmeX..

Stoic and Jun at play
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Photo: MmeX.

Congratulations to all the musicians, artists, Jesse, Trey and the crew for a great experience.

--- Luis